Believe

Part of speech: verb

Pronunciation: /bɪˈliːv/

Definitions

1. to accept something as true or real, or to have confidence that something is correct
2. To accept something as genuine or factual, to trust in its accuracy, or to have faith in its validity based on one's perspective
3. To hold that something is true or exists, often without full proof ; to trust or feel certain about the truth or reliability of a concept or statement

Etymology: The verb "believe" is built from "be-" and "leave", and the connection is startling: to believe something once meant to give it leave, or permission, to be true. Old English "belīefan" carried the sense of allowing or entrusting, and the mental sense of holding something as true grew out of that idea of granting trust to a claim or a person. A neighbouring word shows how close the two ideas once were. Old English "lēof" meant "dear, valued, pleasant", and it gave English "lief", as in "I'd as lief stay home." The Germanic root behind "believe" also had a sense of holding something dear, so the verb's roots mix affection, approval and permission rather than pure mental assent. The sense "to accept as true" and the construction with "in", as in believing in a person or a principle, came partly through a semantic loan from Latin "crēdō", which took the same shift from trusting someone to trusting a claim.

Synonyms: trust, accept, consider, regard, think

Antonyms: doubt, disbelieve, question